Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sunday, 15th August

MY GOD. SHE
hasn’t changed at all. Long black hair; laughing eyes; bright red skirt and sandals. A half-eaten
galette
in one hand; jingling bracelets on one wrist; her daughter scampering in her wake. For a moment it was almost as if Time had stopped; even the child had scarcely aged.

Of course, it wasn’t the same child. I realized that almost at once. For a start, this one has red hair, while the other one was dark. Besides which, looking closer now, I could see that Vianne Rocher
has
changed; there are fine lines around her eyes and she wears a guarded expression, as if eight years have taught her mistrust – or perhaps she’s expecting trouble.

I tried a smile, though I am aware that my personal charm is somewhat lacking. I do not have the easy social graces of Père Henri Lemaître, the priest from Toulouse who now serves the neighbouring parishes of Florient, Chancy and Pont-le-Saôul. My manner has been described (by Caro Clairmont, among others) as
dry
. I neither attempt to woo my flock, nor flatter them into submission. Instead I try to be honest, which earns me little gratitude from Caro and her cronies, who much prefer the kind of priest who attends social functions, coos over babies and lets his hair down at church fêtes.

Vianne Rocher raised an eyebrow. Perhaps my smile was a little forced. Given the circumstances, of course, it was to be expected.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

It’s the soutane. I don’t suppose she’d ever seen me without it. I’ve always thought there was something comforting about the Church’s traditional black robe; a visible sign of authority. But nowadays, I simply wear the collar over a plain black shirt. I do not stoop to wear blue jeans, as Père Henri Lemaître so often does, but Caro Clairmont has made it clear that my wearing of the soutane (outside of religious ceremonies) is no longer entirely appropriate in these days of progress and enlightenment. Caro Clairmont has the Bishop’s ear, and in the light of recent events I’ve learnt that it pays to play the game.

I felt Vianne’s eyes move over me, curious, but not unkind. I waited for her to say I’d changed. Instead, she smiled – a real smile, this time – and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

‘I hope that’s not inappropriate,’ she said, with a hint of mischief.

‘If it were, I doubt you’d care.’

She laughed at that, and her eyes shone. The child at her side gave a gleeful hoot and blew into her plastic trumpet.

‘This is my little Rosette,’ she said. ‘And of course, you’ll remember Anouk.’

‘Of course.’ How could I have missed her? A dark-haired girl of fifteen or so, talking to the Drou boy. Standing out without meaning to in her faded jeans and daffodil shirt, with her dusty feet in their sandals and her hair tied back with a piece of string while the village girls in their festival gear walked past with a contemptuous eye—

‘She looks like you.’

She smiled. ‘Oh dear.’

‘I meant it as a compliment.’

She laughed again at my awkwardness. I never did quite understand what provokes her laughter. Vianne Rocher is one of those people who seem to laugh at everything – as if life were some kind of perpetual joke, and people endlessly charming and good, instead of being mostly stupid and dull, if not downright poisonous.

Cordially: ‘What brings you here?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Just catching up.’

‘Oh.’ She hadn’t heard, then. Or maybe she had, and was toying with me. We’d parted on uncertain terms, and it may be that she still bears a grudge. Perhaps I deserve it, after all. She has the right to despise me.

‘Where are you staying?’

She gave a shrug. ‘I’m not sure if I’m staying at all.’ She looked at me, and I felt those eyes again, like fingers on my face. ‘You look well.’

‘You look the same.’

That concluded the pleasantries. I decided that she knew nothing of my circumstances, and that her arrival – today, of all days – was nothing but coincidence. Very well, I told myself. Perhaps it was better to keep it that way. What could she do, one woman, alone, especially on the eve of a war?

‘Is my chocolate shop still there?’

The question I was dreading. ‘Of course it’s there.’ I looked away.

‘Really? Who runs it?’

‘A foreigner.’

She laughed. ‘A foreigner from Pont-le-Saôul?’ The closeness of our communities has always been a joke to her. All our neighbouring villages are fiercely independent. Once, they were
bastides
, fortress towns in a fretwork of tiny dominions, and even now they tend to be somewhat wary of strangers.

‘You’ll be wanting to find somewhere to stay,’ I said, avoiding the question. ‘Agen has some good hotels. Or you could drive to Montauban—’

‘We don’t have a car. We hired a cab.’

‘Oh.’

The carnival was nearing its end. I could see the final
char
, decked with flowers from stem to stern, staggering down the main road like a drunken bishop in full regalia.

‘I thought we might stay at Joséphine’s,’ said Vianne. ‘Assuming the café still has rooms.’

I pulled a face. ‘I suppose you might.’ I knew I was being ungracious. But to have her here at this sensitive time was to subject myself to unnecessary anxiety. And besides, she has always had the knack of arriving at just the wrong moment—

‘Excuse me, but is something wrong?’

‘Not at all.’ I tried to assume a festive air. ‘But this is Sainte-Marie’s festival, and it’s Mass in half an hour—’

‘Mass. Well, I’ll come with you, then.’

I stared. ‘You never go to Mass.’

‘I thought I might look in at the shop. Just for old times’ sake,’ she said.

I could see there was no stopping her. I prepared myself for the inevitable. ‘It isn’t a chocolate shop any more.’

‘I didn’t think it would be,’ she said. ‘What is it now, a bakery?’

‘Not exactly,’ I said.

‘Maybe the owner will show me around.’

I tried to suppress a grimace.

‘What?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why not?’ Her eyes were inquisitive. At her feet, the red-haired child was squatting in the dusty road. The trumpet had become a doll, and she was marching it to and fro, making little sounds to herself. I wondered if she was entirely normal, but then children seldom make much sense to me.

‘The people aren’t very friendly,’ I said.

She laughed at that. ‘I think I can cope.’

I threw down my last card. ‘They’re foreigners.’

‘So am I,’ said Vianne Rocher. ‘I’m sure we’ll get on like a house on fire.’

And that was how, on the festival of Sainte-Marie, Vianne Rocher blew back into town, bringing with her her usual gift of mayhem, dreams and chocolate.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sunday, 15th August

THE PROCESSION WAS
over. Sainte-Marie in her festival Robes was on her way back to her plinth in the church, her crown put away for another year, her wreath already fading. August is hot in Lansquenet, and the wind that blows across from the hills strips the land of moisture. By the time we arrived, the four of us, the shadows were already lengthening, with only the top of Saint-Jérôme’s tower still shining in the sunlight. The bells were ringing for Mass, and people were making their way to church; old women in black straw hats (with the occasional ribbon or bunch of cherries to relieve half a lifetime of mourning); old men in berets that gave them the look of schoolboys slouching to class, grey hair slicked hastily back with water from the pump in the square, Sunday shoes capped with yellow dust. No one looked at me as they passed. No one looked familiar.

Reynaud glanced over his shoulder at me as he led the way to church. I thought there was something reluctant in the way he approached; although his movements were as precise as ever, he somehow seemed to be dragging his feet, as if to prolong the journey. Rosette had lost her exuberance, along with the plastic trumpet, discarded somewhere along the way. Anouk was walking ahead of us, iPod earpiece in one ear. I wondered what she was listening to, lost in a private world of sound.

We passed the corner of the church and stepped into the little square, and faced the
chocolaterie
; the very first place Anouk and I had ever really called
home
—

For a moment neither of us spoke. It was simply too much to register: the empty windows, gaping roof, the ladder of soot climbing the wall. The smell of it was still half fresh – a combination of plaster, charred wood and memories gone up in smoke.

‘What happened?’ I said at last.

Reynaud shrugged. ‘There was a fire.’

In that moment he almost sounded like Roux in the days that had followed the loss of his boat. The warily uninflected tone, the almost insulting neutrality. I wanted to ask if
he
’d started the fire – not because I believed he had, but just to break his composure.

‘Was anybody hurt?’ I said.

‘No.’ Again, that apparent detachment, though behind it his colours howled and spat.

‘Who lived there?’

‘A woman and her child.’

‘Foreigners,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

His pale eyes held mine almost like a challenge. Of course, I too was a foreigner, at least by his definition. I too was a woman with a child. I wondered whether his choice of words had been intended to convey something else.

‘Did you know them?’

‘Not at all.’

That, too, was unusual. In a place the size of Lansquenet, the parish priest knows everyone. Either Reynaud was lying, or the woman who had lived in my house had managed the near-impossible.

‘Where are they staying now?’ I said.

‘Les Marauds, I think.’

‘You
think
?’

He shrugged. ‘There are lots of them now in Les Marauds,’ he said. ‘Things have changed since you were here.’

I was beginning to think he was right. Things
have
changed in Lansquenet. Behind the half-known faces and the houses and the whitewashed church; the fields; the little streets staggering down towards the river; the old tanneries; the square with its strip of gravel for playing
pétanque
; the school; the bakery – all those landmarks that had seemed to me so comforting when I arrived, with their illusion of timelessness – all now coloured with something else; a shadow of disquiet, perhaps; the strangeness of familiarity.

I saw him glance at the church door. The worshippers had all gone in. ‘Better get your robes,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be late for Mass.’

‘I’m not the one saying Mass today.’ His tone was still perfectly neutral. ‘There’s a visiting priest, Père Henri Lemaître, who comes on special occasions.’

That sounded rather odd to me, although, not being a churchgoer, I was reluctant to comment. Reynaud offered no further explanation, but remained, rather stiffly, at my side, as if awaiting judgement.

Rosette had been watching with Anouk. Both seemed unable to keep their eyes from the
chocolaterie
. Anouk had taken off her iPod and was standing by the charred front door, and I knew that she was remembering us soaping and sanding the woodwork; buying the paint and the brushes; trying to wash the paint from our hair.

‘It might not be as bad as it looks,’ I said to Anouk, and pushed at the door. It was unlocked; it opened. Inside, there was worse: a jumble of chairs piled in the middle of the room, most of them charred and useless. A carpet, rolled up and blackened. The remains of an easel on the floor. A flaking blackboard on the wall.

‘It was a school,’ I said aloud.

Reynaud said nothing. His mouth was set.

Rosette pulled a face and said in sign language:
Are we sleeping here?

I shook my head and smiled at her.

Good. Bam doesn’t like it
.

‘We’ll find somewhere else,’ I told her.

Where?

‘I know just the place,’ I said. I looked at Reynaud. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. But are you in some kind of trouble?’

He smiled. It was a narrow smile, but this time it went all the way to his eyes. ‘I think you could probably say that.’

‘Did you ever
intend
to go to Mass?’

He shook his head.

‘Then come with me.’

Once more he smiled. ‘And where are we going, Mademoiselle Rocher?’

‘First, to put flowers on an old lady’s grave.’

‘And after that?’

‘You’ll see,’ I said.